


Rage Against the Dying Of the Light

by WhumpTown



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 17:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21058370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown
Summary: Peter is scared of the dark and a lot of other things"Do not go gentle into that good nightRage, rage against the dying of the light"-Dylan Thomas





	Rage Against the Dying Of the Light

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling angsty...
> 
> It's probably all the anxiety or the manic... who knows?

Do not go gentle into that good night  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light  
-Dylan Thomas

Peter Parker is afraid of the dark. As a child therapist told Ben and May that it was rational, for a young child learning to live without his parents, to be afraid of the dark. A real Freudian that one was but with age, more and more people commented. That’s the thing about society, about people, they all think they have some obligation to know how your head works. 

“If you want to talk…” Peter looks at the hand on his shoulder, it belongs to one of the thousand faces at his high school. Just a kid in a large crowd of other kids all offering what they think is their help and what is really a reminder. That he can’t breathe without a night light. That each time he closes his eyes he’s back there. His mentor’s blood seeping into his gloved hands and kneeling into the cold ground. Praying for a single word. Not even receiving a _knowing_ look.

He snaps, from the memories, from the dark. “Do I even know you?” The kid looks beyond startled, the hand removes itself. “So, if I have managed to go three years now without talking to you, what makes you think I want to talk about what happened? Let alone, to you?”

The impact of his words… He slams his fist into the closest locker, denting it considerably. The eyes in the hall and in-class keep glancing at him. _Peter Parker is Spiderman._ The words that the world heard and New York City felt. They haunt his dreams and fill his nightmares. Most of his classmates pity him the rest fear him. All their eyes ask about Tony. Everyone wants to know what he was like, their fear of him stops the questions. He’s thankful for that.

“Hey, Pete.” 

He’s a zombie. He’s got every right to be but… Cruelly, he reminds himself that he really is no better than a zombie. Brought back to life all he seeks is brains. He wants Tony back but only to have a mentor again. To replace the gaping hole in his life where a middle-aged, greying man should be. And of course, he wants his suit. That’s all. He just wants what Tony’s money can buy. It’s not like he _misses_ Tony. 

Peter realizes that he’s standing there like a bump on a log, just kind of stuck. Pepper’s looking at him, waiting for him to say something. She’s caught him by surprise. The very last thing he expected upon entering his and May’s new apartment was a Stark sitting on his couch. It’s a deja vu moment and it hurts his chest. A good memory went sour.

She stands and she’s so much taller than he remembers. Thinner, too, but he imagines that’s got something to do with her newfound stresses. Those are mostly his fault. Tony wouldn’t have had survivors guilt if Peter had just done as he was told for once. She doesn’t seem to carry the same anger for him,” honey?”

He tries not to tremble. Tremble from the attention, from how much he needs her to forgive him. How much he needs her and Tony back but he knows that she’ll never see him the same. She’ll never love-

“Oh, honey.” 

Now he’s standing in the living room, surrounded by boxes of his and May’s stuff, crying in his soaking wet clothes. Tears streaming weakly down his face because he’s such a child. Always such a baby. But Pepper closes the distance between them and wraps him up in her thin, warm arms and he cries that much harder. She’s so gentle and he doesn’t deserve it, not after what he did to Tony.

“Shh, shh,” she rubs his back, lets his tears soak her shirt and the warmth of her body soak into his cold heart. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Except it really isn’t and they both know that but when it comes to these grand moments, it doesn’t matter. “Peter, honey, what’s wrong?”

He opens his mouth and the only thing that comes out is a sob. He closes his eyes tight, pushing his face against her shoulder. “Stupid.” Is all he says and it makes perfect sense to him. He’s stupid. This is stupid. His feelings are stupid. Tony was stupid. 

_Tony._

“What do you mean, Peter? What’s stupid?” She keeps rubbing his back, trying to soothe his crying down until she can make sense of his words. It’s his quick breaths that worry her the most. They sound exactly like what happens before Tony used to have his panic attacks. “I need you to talk to me, Peter.”

So he does. He tries. So hard. “Th-This! Me! Wh-Why did-” he hiccups, his breath caught in his chest. “Why did he leave me? Why didn’t he f-fight?”

Pepper stops. Her arms freeze, she can’t even breath. A thousand things come to mind. Each different. “What do you mean Peter?” 

Peter untangles himself from her, trembling where he stands with anger dark in his eyes. It’s heartbreaking. “He died! He-He laid there and-and he died and he didn’t say anything! He didn’t say goodbye! He didn’t say ‘fuck you, Peter’. He didn’t even-” a stupid sob breaks his anger and he looks at her with the most broken eyes. So sad, just miserable. “He didn’t say even ‘I love you’.”

Pepper fights him, just a little, pulling him back against her but he gives up. Leaning into her warmth. “Peter, I need you to listen to me. Okay?” She takes a deep breath and this is all her fault. “Tony… Dr. Strange has been working tirelessly for the last two weeks. Do you remember what he and Dr.- Bruce said? Back _there._”

“He’s dead,” Peter answers somberly, a small hiccup following.

She shakes her head,” no. Think a little harder, what did they say?”

Peter closes his eyes, Tony’s scared and dying body easy to conjure up. He only sees it every time he closes his eyes. “He-He… They said his heart stopped.”

Pepper hums,” yeah. They… He’s alive, Peter. Not very. His heart is beating, he wakes up sometimes, but he’s far from okay.” Peter’s eyes are a flush of emotion, every reaction she was expecting. Except, they don’t settle on angry like she thought they would. His unmistakable jovel, youthful happiness is there. So bright. “That’s why I came here today.”

Peter’s all cried out or he might start sobbing again. He just stands there, in front of her, and trembles. He’s exhausted. He goes out on patrol in his first suit. He doesn’t sleep most nights and when he does sometimes he’s too tired to dream of his mentor’s death. “He’s-He’s?”

Pepper nods.

“Can I…” it feels like he’s asking for something he doesn’t deserve. But Pepper smiles, big. Hope tears through his chest like a bullet.

“I can take you to see him right now.”

A small part of Peter’s brain knows that things aren’t okay. He’s never walked into a hospital to find good news away for him. He watched Tony stop breathing, heard the eerie silence of nothing coming from his chest. The burns were… Pepper tells him they amputated Tony’s right arm and that it’s likely that the nerve damage is so bad they’ll take his leg too. That’s all he hears, she keeps talking, but he rationalizes everything with science.

Like a catalog, he brings to memory his BIO 200 class. The Bicep Brachii and Coracobriachilas, if memory serves him right, are the muscles he’s probably still got attached but he doesn’t know anything about amputations so maybe even that’s wrong. But with what he read about neurology and stem cells and everything health-related, he can probably make some half-functioning prothesis for Tony. Something to at least get him up and around until he can make his own.

He’s thinking schematics when Pepper puts her hand on his chest. He looks up and he’s staring into a hospital room. He can’t remember getting here. Now he can’t even remember his rough estimation of Tony’s bicep size. If he added a chest strap, that might not matter all that much. If he has a chest strap then he’s also going to have to add at least another for over Tony’s shoulder. If it’s too heavy then another for-

“Kid.” 

His mind goes blank. Tony’s right there. Weighed down by machines and wires and a mask that fogs with each distorted breath Tony gasps for. He’s alive, hardly, but his heart beats in his chest and his chest rises with each breath. His eyes are open, staring into Peter’s. With each passing second, Peter’s vision becomes a little hazier, a little less focused.

He blinks through the tears, sending them down his cheeks in warm rivers. A hand comes to the small of his back, Pepper’s perfume like a wave around his head, and the hand pushes gently. He takes the steps on his own. Tears falling down his face uncontrollably and Tony smiles at him. 

Weeks of anger wash away. Tony reaches up with his left hand, catching Peter by the waist of his jeans and pulling him close. It’s not until Tony’s skin touches his own that Peter breathes. He’s been holding his breath for weeks. On the edge. The warmth, the life of his mentor seeps into him. One of Tony’s scarred and calloused hands resting in Peter’s curls and they both breathe deeply.

When Peter was five, Ben brought home a night light. He and May argued for a week about it. Ben was always the softy. He wanted Peter to be safe, to feel safe. May wanted him to be strong, smart, to push himself. In the end, it was May who caved. Peter Parker has always been afraid of the dark no night light has changed that. 

But.

When Aunt May plugged the night light in, his room bathed in the soft red glow, he felt… safer. He could look through the soft glow and find the Iron Man mask illuminated by that small bulb. Iron Man was watching over him and he could rest easier at night.

Peter has only been Spider-Man for a short time now. Spider-Man has always had Iron Man. Ned used to poke fun of him and say that his internship seemed a lot more like babysitting with the way that Spider-Man never really patrols alone anymore. Even if Tony always hid when he was watching or at least tried to. “Mr. Stark?”

Tony keeps gently rubbing Peter’s scalp, he hums.

“I really missed you.”

Through it all, five years of PTSD, survivors guilt, dodging the Avengers, and raising Morgan… Every moment could never be perfect, never right. He was missing his kid, his son. Tony presses his lips against Peter’s head,” I missed you too, kiddo.”

Peter’s chest swells, comfort, ease, and love. He closes his eyes and he knows this is how it felt when May plugged that night light in. He’ll always be afraid of the dark but that’s okay. Tony will always be here and he’ll always fight and that’s better than any Iron Man night light he could ever get.

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda wanna do a fic with Pepper and like how she makes it work with Tony. 
> 
> Like complaining about him cuddling in his sleep and how the arc reactor is always too cold or too hot when he touches her, him getting it taken out and she wakes up every night in a panic because he's not humming softly beside her or glowing, or the number of meetings she misses when he has a break down and locks himself away or can't leave a situation that's triggering him
> 
> I just don't know a plot, something to carry these ideas out... you know?


End file.
